'He was out to get me from the start': Employee deletes all his work files after being fired by manager who wants to take down the company

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Mar 1, 2024 9:00 AM EST

Getting fired is not a fun experience, that is a no-brainer. Nobody likes getting fired, and nobody wants it. Most of the time it comes out of nowhere, but sometimes you actually see it coming. Whether by listening to a hushed conversation between your supervisors or when you see a suspicious-looking meeting was added to your calendar.

I always wanted to be one of those employees who dare to teach the boss a lesson when they decide to fire you. Some kind of way to say "You are going to be sorry for letting me go", but I always end up being nice about it and accepting it quietly. 

The employee in this Reddit story did not go quietly when he got fired. OP (original poster) discovers that his boss is planning to bring down the firm by selling it to a different company. Right before that happens, OP gets fired and is told to get his documents ready for the move. OP,  angry at his now-former boss, deleted all his documents in response.

Scroll down to read the full story. When you are done with those, click here to read a story of an entitled customer who was put in his place by store manager.

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  • 01
    You want my work? Have fun.
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 02
    A few years ago I worked for a firm that consulted for small businesses. Not long after I joined, the firm was acquired and the new company did some things to force my boss out against her
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 03
    will (we'll call her X). She was quickly picked up by a rival firm and subsequently began a personal vendetta to ruin us. I didn't think much of it at first but it escalated to the point that
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 04
    everyone at the office knew X's name and what she was trying to do. A couple years after X left, a new board member (we'll call him Y) came into a company I was
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 05
    assigned to. Y repeatedly "found" nonexistent problems, made me put together documents that he never looked at, and constantly complained about how I was doing a terrible job. Luckily, my manager knew my work was fine
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 06
    and had my back, but it was cutting into my time and energy to accommodate Y. This went on for months. Finally, Y convinced the other board members of my
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 07
    "incompetence" and they voted to fire us. They then signed a contract with X's firm. By then, I'd heard whispers through the grapevine that Y was friendly with X and wanted the company to switch to her new firm to get us to lose business.
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 08
    I was poed. Y complained about my work for MONTHS, and he wasn't quiet about it. He made it seem like it was my fault. I put so many extra hours into that stupid company trying to appease him.
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 09
    And it turned out it didn't even matter, because he and X were out to get us. I was told to prepare my files for transfer to X's firm. Oh, I'll prepare them all right.
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 10
    Most of my work was in Excel. I couldn't touch the important info, but I had lots of things working behind-the-scenes. Formulas that updated info across multiple pages, automatic calculations,
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 11
    meticulous double-checking, all sorts of little tricks to make my work easier. Almost two years of continuous trial-and-error and adjustments. I deleted all of it.
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 12
    Whoever got the document had to manage almost forty pages of numbers and legalese line by line. I'm sure they'll have their own system to smooth the process eventually, but it was
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 13
    undoubtedly massively inconvenient and time- consuming for whoever had to set all that up. Petty? Probably. Satisfying? Absolutely.
    via u/unlucky-bystander
  • 14
    7h ago This makes me wonder how long it would take to write a macro that would change the font of every different character in the spreadsheet, D23fan11
    via u/D23fan11
  • 15
    convert to a tab-delimited format, convert the tabs to a random 1-10 spaces, then save it as an image then convert to a pdf.
    via u/D23fan11
  • 16
    vampyrewolf. 6h ago I was downsized in 2013, and had my working data all on an SDXC card that I moved between laptops. Never knew when my (management) laptop had to be used by one of my techs
    via u/vampyrewolf
  • 17
    while on rotation because their company laptop had issues. Obviously my personal laptop couldn't go on the network, but my data could go between.
    via u/vampyrewolf
  • 18
    That card conveniently got removed from the laptop before I handed it over during my exit checklist... And then I cut it in half in front of my boss and HR, completely depriving them of 2.5 years of my files.
    via u/vampyrewolf
  • 19
    NickNoraCharles • 7h ago Well played.
    via u/NickNoraCharles
  • 20
    Pristine_Egg3831 • 7h ago I feel this in my bones
    via u/Pristine_Egg3831
  • 21
    Bargle-Nawdle-Zo... 5h ago So, you did the thing where you converted all the formula cells to data?
    via u/Bargle-Nawdle-Zo
  • 22
    Anonymous0212 • 27m ago ● Whoever had to set all that up wasn't responsible for ing you over, but I assume it cost the company a lot of money to pay them to slog through the mess you left.
    via u/Anonymous0212
  • 23
    marslander-boggart • 7h ago ● Great!
    via u/marslander-boggart

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boss delete workplace-stories employee fired manager job retail tales-from-the-workplace reddit story toxic-boss data workplace Reddit company
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